The present invention provides a personalized caller ID service in which a subscriber may identify himself when he calls his own telephone number from a remote location, so that an indication of the subscriber""s identity may be displayed on the subscriber""s caller ID equipment. When a subscriber to the service calls his own telephone number, he enters a personal identification number (PIN) during the ringing tone. Entry of the PIN causes the system to retrieve a personalized message from data storage and to transmit that message to the subscriber""s caller ID equipment at the time the call is terminated to the subscriber""s line. For example, the message may read xe2x80x9cDad is calling.xe2x80x9d Thus, when a subscriber calls his children at home from a payphone and enters his PIN, instead of seeing the calling number identified as xe2x80x9cpayphonexe2x80x9d the children will see that xe2x80x9cDad is calling,xe2x80x9d and thus will know that it is safe to answer the phone.
The message that is displayed in response to the PIN is preferably a personalized message that is selected by the subscriber at the time that he subscribes to the personalized caller ID service. The PIN is either selected by the subscriber or assigned by the telephone network provider. A database stores a record for the subscriber""s directory number, which contains a correlation between the PIN and the personalized text message.
When the invention is implemented in an advanced intelligent network (AIN), a termination attempt trigger (TAT) may be provisioned on the subscriber""s line at a service switching point (SSP) that services the subscriber""s line. Whenever a call is placed to the subscriber""s line, the TAT triggers a query to a service control point (SCP) which hosts the database that maintains the list of PINs and messages. The SCP determines that the personalized caller ID service is provisioned for the subscriber and instructs the SSP to generate an audio prompt for a DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency) PIN. The prompt may comprise the familiar ringing tone, thus allowing the prompt to be transparent to third-party callers who are unaware that the subscriber uses the personalized caller ID service. If the subscriber is calling his own number, he may enter his PIN using the touch-tone keypad at the telephone station. When the PIN is received, the SCP looks up the
The present invention relates generally to the field of telephony, and, more particularly, to a system and method for providing a personalized caller identification service.
Caller identification (xe2x80x9ccaller IDxe2x80x9d) services allow a called party to determine the source of the call before answering the telephone. In order to use a caller ID service, a customer of a telephone network subscribes to the caller ID service and purchases caller ID equipment. When a call is terminated at the subscriber""s line, the network provides data which includes the directory number of the line from which the call originated, and the record name of the party associated with that number. By using such a service, the subscriber is able to decide whether or not to answer the phone based on who is calling.
While caller ID services are useful tools for screening calls (e.g., unwanted sales calls), the disadvantage of such systems is that they are predicated on the assumption that the caller can always be identified by the particular telephone station from which he or she places the call. This assumption does not hold in the case where a caller places a call at a payphone, a hotel, or other location that is unlikely to be familiar to the calling party. For example, parents may instruct their children not to answer the phone for strangers. However, if a parent attempts to call the children from an unknown location (e.g., a payphone), the children will conclude (incorrectly) that a stranger is calling, and will not answer the phone.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a caller ID system and method that overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art. subscriber""s record in the database and compares the entered PIN to the PIN listed in the database. If the entered PIN matches the PIN in the database, the subscriber""s personalized message is inserted into the CNAM field of the data that is transmitted to the subscriber""s caller ID equipment, so that the personalized message may be displayed on the caller ID equipment.
Other features of the invention are described below.